Possible Cuban regime involvement with US election machines casts doubt on integrity of America’s votes Reply

  J. Michael Waller, Center for Security Policy

Reports of Cuban regime funding of tech companies that serviced America’s elections may indicate that foreign intelligence services have manipulated our presidential vote. A possible Chinese connection makes things even worse.

The technologies were created to “manipulate” votes favorable to socialists, according to Sidney Powell, a prominent Washington attorney and member of President Trump’s legal team who has been investigating the problem.

Reports include insider accounts, affidavits, a user manual, news reports, and other information unearthed in a legal investigation into the origin and function of voting technologies by Dominion and Smartmatic in Georgia and other states.

Voting systems used to keep Cuban-backed regime in power

The technologies are of foreign origin, used under Cuban direction in Venezuela as early as 2004. They were “created to produce altered voting results in Venezuela for Hugo Chavez and then shipped internationally to manipulate votes for purchase in other countries, including this one,” Powell told Fox Business News on Friday.

Those systems were used in the entire state of Georgia and across the United States this year.

“It was funded by money from Venezuela and Cuba, and China has a role in it also,” Powell said. “So if you want to talk about foreign election interference, we certainly have it now.”

The former chairwoman of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, Ana Mercedes Diaz, exposed these operations back in 2013 and produced a copy of Smartmatic’s 2004 contract with the Cuban-backed regime

Scrappy Cuba hits way above its weight

In the world of political warfare and covert operations, Cuba’s Communist regime punches way above its weight. Its survival depends on it. Built as a surrogate for the Soviet KGB, Cuba’s DGI intelligence service was more effective than its creator in doubling our own agents against us, matched only by the exceptionally capable Stasi of East Germany.

But the Stasi is structurally gone and the KGB has been reorganized with its components re-named, while the DGI remains the nervous system, eyes, ears, and hands of the Cuban regime, at home and abroad. And US counterintelligence capabilities and resources range from inadequate and obsolete to disastrous.

Intelligence and subversion are Cuba’s only significant manufactured exports. Regimes like China, Russia, and Venezuela pay Cuba for the services.

Feature continues here: Possible Cuban manipulation of US Election

 

This Month in History: France Expelled Cuban Spies for Terrorist Ties Reply

July 1975:  France expelled three Cuban officials for having ties to the international terrorist, Carlos the Jackel. The three were Raul Rodriguez Sainz, Pedro Lara Zamora, and Ernesto Reyes Herrera.  According to a German source, all three were officers in Cuba’s foreign intelligence service – the Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI).

This Month in History: Spy Chieftain Resigned Following Drug Smuggling Implications Reply

July 1989:  General German Barreiro Carames, head of the Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI), resigned.  Apparently, he was implicated in cocaine smuggling.  Barreiro had replaced Jose Mendez Cominches.  Originally a Counterintelligence Officer, over time Barreiro’s duties grew to include membership in the Central Committee and the Popular Assembly.

Spy Surrogate to Host “Free the Five” Symposium 2

The Cuban News agency, Prensa Latina, has reported that the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) will hold the 8th International Colloquium for the Release of The Cuban Five on November 28th – December 1st.  Held in the city of Holguin in eastern Cuba, the forum will focus on coordinating new actions for the release of the five spies, according to the invitation made to solidarity activists and organizations worldwide.  The colloquium will begin with a cycling tour.  The schedule also includes meetings with relatives of the Cuban 5, as well as discussions and cultural exchanges.

According to PRELA, attendees are also expected to review the implementation of agreements reached in last year’s 7th Colloquium, when they agreed on strategies to strengthen solidarity with the Cuban Five, including better use of social media.  Activists from 50 countries attended the meeting in 2011.

See the PRELA release here:  http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=522903&Itemid=1

Editor’s Note:  DGI officer Jesus Raul Perez Mendez was director of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) before his July 1983 defection.  According to the New York Times, ICAP “arranges and supervises visits by Americans to Cuba and maintains contacts with native-born Cubans in other countries.”  The Times also cited a State Department spokesman who claimed ICAP was suspected of having an intelligence collection mission in support of the DGI. 

The Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI) was the foreign intelligence wing of the Ministry of the Interior.  Following a 1989 reorganization, this service became known as the Directorate of Intelligence (DI). 

More recently, a former DI officer reportedly that ICAP is not a DI entity per se, but that it was overwhelmingly influenced by the intelligence service. The highly-reliable émigré claimed ICAP was penetrated by a small cadre of bona fide DI officers, aided by a large staff of agents (i.e., collaborators). As a result, roughly 90% of ICAP was thought to be DI-affiliated.

This Month in History: Cuban Spies Active in British Guiana Reply

July 1963:  Gines Silvio Gorriz, head of the British Guiana desk for the South America Section of the DGI’s National Liberation Department, visited British Guiana.  He returned in September 1963 and March 1964 on unspecified intelligence duties.  While little is known of Cuban Intelligence operations in the country during this period, declassified CIA reports claim the DGI’s workload justified the assignment of two assistants.

Editor’s Notes:

1). The Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI) was the foreign intelligence wing of the Ministry of the Interior.  Since its 1989 reorganization, this service has been known as the Directorate of Intelligence (DI).

2). British Guiana, now known as Guyana, became independent on May 26, 1966.

Castro’s Puppet Works for “Progressive Congress” Reply

By Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media

A former AFL-CIO political director, who is now running a project to establish a “progressive Congress,” walked away in disgust last week when I tried to question her about a trip she had made to Castro’s Cuba. The exchange, such as it was, occurred at the “Take Back the American Dream” conference in Washington, D.C., where Karen Ackerman had appeared on a panel about how to elect progressive candidates in the 2012 elections and ensure Democratic Party control of the House and Senate.

“Why do you care?” she responded, as I pursued her with questions about a pro-Castro junket she took to the communist “island paradise.”

The trip to communist Cuba was one of several initially organized by Weather Underground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn and run by the Cuban intelligence service, the DGI. Young people on the trips were indoctrinated in the communist philosophy and given training in terrorism. Dohrn and her husband, fellow communist terrorist Bill Ayers, were associates of Barack Obama when he was launching his political career in Chicago.

In years past, when Congress had internal security committees and subcommittees, travel to Cuba was investigated because of the concern about such trips being used for intelligence purposes against the United States. Most of the travel to Cuba in those years was illegal.

Ignoring this threat, President Obama has expanded travel to Cuba, even though the Castro regime has kidnapped and holds hostage an American foreign aid worker by the name of Alan Gross.

A new book, Castro’s Secrets, by Brian Latell, the CIA’s National Intelligence Officer for Latin America from 1990-1994, adds to the concern about those who traveled to Cuba by describing the case of a Venceremos Brigade veteran who worked or may still work as a university professor in the U.S.

Read the entire article here:  http://www.aim.org/aim-column/castros-puppet-works-for-progressive-congress/

OPERACIÓN “MANUEL” y la subversión armada en América Latina” Reply

by Jorge Luis García Vázquez

El apoyo de los grupos armados en América Latina y en algunos países de Africa o el Medio Oriente, fue una de las principales misiones del Partido Comunista de Cuba y su Directorio para Espionaje Exterior. (DGI)

La Operación “Manuel” contiene documentos desclasificados por el Ministerio del Interior de la República Checa y provienen de los fondos de la ex policía política, StB, los cuales han sido revisados y analizados por el historiador  Tomek Propok.

Es un resumen de las operaciones de apoyo del servicio de inteligencia checo-eslovaco al espionaje cubano y a los grupos armados latino-americanos, entre ellos el Partido Comunista de Venezuela y el Frente Nacional de Liberación (FALN), entre otros.

El comienzo  de la operación “Manuel” tuvo lugar en La Habana el 17 de diciembre de 1962 cuando el oficial de la inteligencia cubana “Justo” solicitó al  agente y residente del espionaje checo-eslovaco en Cuba, “Velebil” , apoyo para el regreso a su país de 7 miembros del Partido Comunista de Venezuela que estaban en Cuba.(1)

Se trataba de un amplio plan de apoyo a los  grupos de lucha violenta de América del Sur, inspirados en la “revolución cubana” y que recibían entrenamiento político-militar en Cuba.“La asistencia requerida era -, además de alojamiento – especialmente en inmigración, una autorización especial, para viajar a Praga con  pasaportes falsos cubanos  y venezolanos a través de varios países de tránsito, sin sellos que pudieran delatar la estancia en Checoslovaquia”(2)

El fracaso del desembarco cubano en Machurucuto, la situación económica de Cuba y otros errores cometidos por lo cubanos, entre otros factores, conllevaron a disminuir notablemente las operaciones de apoyo a los grupos sur- americanos.

Praga se convirtió para el servicio de espionaje de Fidel Castro  en un importante centro de operaciones. Entre 1969-1970  110 agentes cubanos fueron estacionados en la capital de la antigua República de Checoslovaquia.

Read the entire article at the STASI-MININT Connection:  http://www.stasi-minint.blogspot.com/

“Burned” Cuban Agent Moves From Miami to the Big Apple 6

Dr. Lisandro Pérez, formerly a Sociology professor at Florida International University (FIU), has moved to John Jay College in New York City.  Identified as a Cuban Intelligence agent by no less than three separate sources, Perez was first “outed” 32 years old.

In 1974, the trimester Areito magazine was founded, which boasted of its support for Castro’s Cuban Revolution.  Four founders and collaborators of Areito were Jorge Dominguez, Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Lisandro Pérez & Marifeli Perez-Stable.  In 1980, Committee of 75 leader, Reverend Manuel Espinosa, publicly denounced Areito as front organizations for DGI espionage and recruitment campaign in the United States.  In March 1982, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, that Areito was “DGI propaganda.”  Then, in July 1983, DGI Captain Jesus Perez-Mendez defected to the United States and also confirmed Areito’s ties to Cuban Intelligence.

Background

Pérez was formerly a Sociology professor at Florida International University (FIU) and the founder of the Cuban Research Institute (CRI).  He established CRI in 1991 and developed it into the premier academic center in the US for the study of Cuba and Cuban Americans.  He served as its director until 2003.  CRI has a relationship with the influential Inter-American Dialogue and they co-sponsor Cuba-related events in DC.  He is also a long-time supporter of dialogue w/dialog with Cuba.

Pérez has a lifelong interest in Cuban migration to the U.S., the dynamics of the Cuban-American community, and social change in Cuba. For several years, he was the author of the journal Cuban Studies, which has been published annually by the University of Pittsburgh   Press since 1985. It is the preeminent journal for scholarly work on Cuba.  He has contributed to several edited collections and has written articles for journals such as Columbia Journal of World Business, International Migration Review, the Latin American Research Review, Los Angeles Times, and the Journal of Latin American Studies. He has appeared on PBS’ Frontline, at the Woodrow Wilson Int’l Center for Scholars, at the Inter-American Dialogue, and the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE).

See the full article here:  Burned Cuban Agent Moves From Miami to the Big Apple

This Date in History Reply

June 24, 1961:  Havana transferred 1st Secretary Raul Ceferino Zayas Linares to Bolivia to replace expelled Charge d’Affaires, Mauro Garcia Triana.   The Cuban Charge had been thrown out of Bolivia for interfering in the nation’s domestic affairs.  It is almost a certainty that Zayas‘ wife, Tania Rouco de Zayas, accompanied him on his diplomatic postings.  The couple were both officers in Cuba’s foreign intelligence service, the Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI) [also known as the General Directorate of Intelligence].  In 1959 or 1960, Havana assigned the husband-wife team to its embassy in Santiago. Only 19 or 20 years old at the time, Raul Zayas worked with sympathizers in the Socialist Party.

Cuban police arrest top aide to parliament speaker Alarcón Reply

A senior aide to Ricardo Alarcón, Cuba’s long-serving parliament president, was arrested along with his wife, a former intelligence agent

By Juan O. Tamayo

jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

The top aide to the president of Cuba’s parliament, Ricardo Alarcón, and his wife — both former intelligence agents — have been in police custody for two months in a case that might well be aimed at ousting Alarcón, according to a Havana colleague.

Miguel Alvarez and Mercedes Arce, in their mid-50s, were detained on March 3 in Havana and remained in custody as of Monday for investigation on alleged corruption charges, the colleague added.

Alvarez was long known as Alarcón’s right-hand man in his job as senior advisor on international and political affairs, and he sat in on many of Alarcón’s meetings with visiting dignitaries and journalists.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/06/2836372/cuban-police-arrest-top-aide-to.html#storylink=cpy

Also see the Cuba Confidential story of May 22^nd, “Washington Post Clueless Again: Wants Spy Admitted to US”  https://cubaconfidential.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/washington-post-clueless-again-wants-spy-admitted-to-us/